What If . . .

Mark Smith has his most recent installment of the Powerchair Diaries up. Always worth a read . . .

Teaser:

See, a lot of times it’s not the seeming physical realities of our disabilities or lives that limit us, but our own narrow thinking. And, so, I got to really thinking about boats again over the past year, wondering, Is it truly impossible for me to ever own and operate a boat again, or am I boxing myself in, preventing pursuing among my foremost lifelong passions due to narrow thinking? More bluntly, was I letting my perception of my disability keep me from living to my fullest? In fact, from time to time, I said to my family the dreaded only-if statement: Only-if it wasn’t for my situation – if only I didn’t have cerebral palsy – I’d have another boat in a heartbeat….

Such only-if thinking never works, though, and I know that whenever in life I’ve found myself going into only-if mode, I’ve needed to turn my bow into the wind, and start thinking what-ifs?, steering myself toward a more positive horizon.

To turn my boating only-ifs into what-ifs?, I made a list of what I literally couldn’t do when it came to boating, then I tried to come up with a creative what-if? question for each problem, seeing if the thought process might lead me to solutions:

I don’t live near coastal waters, but what-if there’s a terrific lake in my area for boating that I’ve overlooked?

I can’t trailer, launch, or store a boat; but, what-if it was permanently birthed somewhere, in the water, ready to go, at a wheelchair-accessible dock?

I can’t climb aboard a boat, but what-if there’s a style of boat that I could somehow transfer onto myself?

Boats are expensive, but what-if there are the less-costly alternatives?

So, I spent the winter working through the possible what-if? answers, limited not by my physical disability, but by only focusing on creative solutions. And, where the answers led me was surprising.